*** ORBUSMAX GUEST OP/ED *** As
troubling as losing my "Reagan/Bush '84" sticker was, the reaction of my
supposedly tolerant friends was even more so. One friend - she bright
and articulate, but just this side of Karl Marx -- said I should feel
lucky: the Tolerant One could have keyed my car door or slashed my tires
or busted my windows. To which I wondered aloud whether blacks in the
South felt lucky when the KKK burned their houses instead of killing
them altogether. Another card-carrying lefty pal suggested with a
straight face that a fellow right-side-of-the-fencer took the sticker
for his own private collection. To which I replied: it's possible that
John Kerry didn't care about the net worth of his two multi-gajillionaire wives when he married them - but I doubt it. A
fellow rightie straightened me out. She told me that conservative
bumper stickers don't actually go on bumpers anymore, at least in the
Northwest. If you want it to last, you have to tape it to the inside of
the car's back window. Don't get me wrong. My world isn't over -
yet. If losing my six dollar "Reagan/Bush '84" bumper sticker is the
worst thing that happens to me,
I'll be okay. It's still outrageous. In America, we're supposed to be
free to express ourselves - especially, our political selves. Other
people are supposed to tolerate that expression. That is, more than
anything else, the very essence of being "American." If the best
conservatives can hope for is to get by without their tires being
slashed, then the war in Iraq isn't the only war we should be worried
about. Vandalizing private property wasn't right when good ol' boys
were burning crosses in front yards, and it isn't right now.
THE SHORT, SAD LIFE OF MY REAGAN/BUSH BUMPER STICKER - By Nicholas G. Jenkins
July 21, 2004
I've often wondered how the left co-opted the descriptor "tolerant." To
most people on my side of the fence, the average liberal is slightly
more tolerant than a Gestapo member. After my latest experience in
Toleranceville - that Left Coast hometown of mine, Seattle, Washington -
I decided to wonder in column.
I must confess that what happened didn't seem particularly
Earth-shattering at first. Some clown ripped a "Reagan/Bush '84" bumper sticker off my car. Putting it there was supposed to
be my most visible step yet out of the ideological closet. There
aren't many "out" conservatives in these parts percentagewise, and being
one is like being a cross-dressing Marine at boot camp - better to keep
it on the down low. President Reagan's death reminded me that a good
American - like him -- stands strong, resolute and proud. "My driver's
conservative," the sticker would tell drivers behind me. "And he's damn
proud of it."
It was bad enough that some yahoo took my sticker. What's worse was
that it only survived on my bumper for three hours. At most. I
put it there at 3:30 pm. By 6:30, after driving all of one mile and
parking my car on a very public street for about an hour, it was gone.
So sometime between 5:30 and 6:30, some self-appointed guardian of All
Things Fit for Public Viewing decided that my expression of Right Pride
wasn't so fit. Three hours. John Kerry takes longer to flip
flop.
In hindsight, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. The left's "Take Back
America" theme is, at bottom, a message of vigilantism -- President Bush
stole their country under cover of night (via an election), and they
have an inalienable right to take it back. Their political leaders have
slightly more room for the right than National Socialists had for Jews
in the early years. Indeed, Howard Dean said he wanted to break up the Fox News Channel on
ideological grounds. And now Tom Harkin wants Rush Limbaugh off Armed Forces Radio.
Their foot soldiers are more belligerent. In my hometown, Tolerant
Ones vandalized Starbucks stores at the WTO rally with the same vigor
that young Nazis went after synagogues on Kristallnacht -- and the
police let them. A guy who lives a few miles north of me has had his
car keyed, his house egged, and his mail box blown up - several times. His crime is having a "Bush/Cheney"
sign in his front yard. In truth, the left's message is "Take Back
America . . . by any means necessary." If those means happen to
include vandalizing other people's private property - so be it.
My fear is that this was a foreshadowing of something worse, like the
banning of "insensitive" political signage altogether. Can't happen in
America, you say? We're well on the way. In America today, many
businesses, schools, apartment complexes and universities ban the American flag, lest some non-Americans feel offended. The
Koran is required reading to get into the University of North
Carolina (a public university), lest incoming freshmen be insensitive to
the plight of fellow Muslim students. In many schools nationwide,
fifth- and sixth graders are required to pray to Allah to make them
"sensitive" to Muslim students post 9-11. Here in Seattle, municipal
employees got the word from above not to wish co-workers "Merry Christmas," lest they
offend each other. All this in a country whose Constitution supposedly
protects political and religious freedom. Is the specter of political
signage being banned in certain "tolerant" towns - maybe Seattle --
really so outlandish? Say, on "sensitivity" or "public safety" grounds?
I don't think so.
Funny thing is, if I was a homosexual and "Reagan/Bush '84" was one of
those rainbow stickers, the left would scream about gay intolerance and
I'd be labeled a hate crime victim. If I was a black and someone ripped
off my Black Power bumper sticker, they'd say my civil rights were
violated. But you won't see that kind of reaction when the victim of the
self-appointed Bumper Sticker Police is -- like me -- a heterosexual,
Christian, conservative, Reagan-loving white male. Out on the left,
tolerance is a one way street.
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Nick Jenkins runs the website TheFence.com.